Chicken Everywhere: Gingrich And Santorum In The Republican Primaries

Gingrich, Santorum (and I guess also Ron Paul) keep splitting the conservative vote in the Republican primaries. Romney gets through because of the split.

Gingrich and Santorum are playing a dynamic version of Chicken (a war of attrition) with budget constraints. With complete information, a war of attrition has the player with the lower budget dropping out immediately in equilibrium. He knows that eventually there will be a penultimate stage where the player with the bigger budget will definitely fight because he knows he will be the only player left standing the next and final period and hence will win the prize with certainty. The player with the dwindling budget might as well drop out and save his money at the penultimate stage. But then we can backward induct to the pen-penultimate stage etc. and the player with the smaller budget drops out immediately.

This solution relies on a lot of rationality and complete information. Both of these are suspect in the Republican primaries. On the one hand Gingrich seems to be in the better financial position. He has a billionaire bankrolling him, Santorum does not. But on he other hand, the billionaire might not want to waste money on a lost cause. And it appears Santorum does have more money in the bank than Gingrich because he does have some support. And both men display the mixture of nutty self-belief and guile that is characteristic of politicians. Plenty of reason for the race to go on for along time.

Perhaps too long for Obama supporters. I think they should prefer Gingrich as the Republican candidate in the general election not Romney. In Florida, Romney showed that he has strong support among moderates. Moderates are the key to victory in the general election. A Democratic billionaire has to pitch in, help out the casino billionaire and bankroll the Gingrich SuperPac. They can do this by setting up an anonymous company with a PO box, keep their identity hidden and sign over a check. A big enough donation should trigger a Santorum exit as in analysis above. Then, it’s Romney vs Gingrich the rest of the way (with fringe support for Paul).

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3 comments

The Republican nominee for president has to win a majority of votes not a plurality of votes at the Republican convention. As a consequence sincere voting in the primaries is much more likely than in the general election. At the Republican convention, Santorum delegates can end up voting for Gingrich and vice versa.

One more thing to consider — would Obama prefer to face a more predictable opponent (Romney) who is easier to prepare for or a more unpredictable (some would say “erratic”) opponent (Gingrich) who has the potential to self-destruct a few days after inflicting major damage (or the reverse)? My bet is that Obama would prefer to face Romney, so long as his strategists recognize that likely voters will not settle for re-heated arguments — Obama will have to do better than mouth shibboleths.

Models are nice because they simplify, but in this case your model is incorrect because it is too simplistic. Santorum’s strategy was to lay low and let ROMNEY’s big money tear down Gingrich. All he as to do is survive until Gingrich is discredited, then the conservative majority in the GOP will flow to him as the last man standing. This is a viable strategy for Santorum because Gingrich’s personality flaws and South Carolina victory made him the obvious target for Romney. Very smart to have Romney fight your war for you, and let Romney reap the ire of the conservative wing of the party. It only reinforces the image of Santorum as Mr. Clean, with a clean personal life, a clear conservative record, and someone who focuses on the issues, not mudslinging. That will also make him Obama’s worst nightmare. Santorum will be able to paint a clear, huge contrast between his traditional conservative values of respect for the Constitution, religious freedom and free enterprise versus Obama’s contempt for all of them. That should result in a GOP victory similar to that won in 1980.